S. Korea praises China's role in nudging N. Korea to talks

Alicia Cross

South Korea's National Security Office chief Chung Eui-yong who led the delegation will head to Russian Federation on Tuesday after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday, the Blue House said.

If negotiations follow a Trump-Xi summit, China will likely seek to participate, rather than leave the deliberations to the United States and the two Koreas.

Possible sites for the meeting of President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have not been announced but speculation has already begun as a possible historic May meeting approaches.

The Washington Times ventures that North Korea's radio silence on the summit "prompted some uncomfortable moments over the weekend for administration officials defending Mr. Trump's announcement that he believes a meeting could happen by the end of May".

Speaking after meeting Suh, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono credited recent changes in North Korea's position to increased pressure by global society.

China earlier expressed its support for the us plan to hold an unprecedented summit with the North by the end of May. But both his premise and his conclusion are wrong - dangerously wrong and catastrophically risky - and North Korea, through conversations with South Korean officials, reportedly indicated as much this week.

Brown, D-Ohio, called on Trump to "work with our allies to end North Korea's nuclear program and I'm glad the sanctions Congress passed against North Korea helped bring Kim Jong-un to the table". "North Korea talks. I am delighted that South Korea's efforts have made great progress in the overall Korean Peninsula situation and that close dialogue between North Korea and the US has been achieved", Xi told Chung, according to South Korean officials.

Zhang Liangu, a former professor of global strategy at the Chinese Communist Party's Central Party School and an expert on North Korea, says that thought is divided on how much China should actively involve itself in the talks.

"The WCC joins the participants in the NCCK conference in calling for the worldwide community, and especially the United States of America, to respond affirmatively to these signs of hope, with reciprocal tension-reducing and trust-building measures", the WCC statement said.

Tillerson says the first meeting will be about Trump and Kim "getting a sense of one another" and determining whether there is the space and will to accomplish something together on the North's nuclear weapons program.

The turnabout - a huge surprise after months of intensifying brinksmanship over the North's nuclear and missile programmes - caught even Trump's top aides off guard. But not quite. And in this hypercompetitive society, young South Koreans may often prioritize their own futures over what's happening to the north.

For all Kim's bluster and extravagance, he leads "an exceedingly weak and arguably very fragile regime", Bacevich said, "and my guess is their principal objective is to remain in power".